Tree Trunks, Gilbert AZ

Between our rented house and Queen Creek Wash — with its roadrunners, hawks, bunnies, great horned owls, and Gambel’s quail (which move too jerkily and continuously to be photographed) — the photography options are a bit limited.

The outbound route does take me by the levitating wigeons and occasional turtles, so there’s that. But there are only so many photos I need of wigeons, and the typical homeward-bound route is a bit boring.

So it came about that I was looking more carefully at tree trunks, marvelling at their diversity of texture.

I can see marvels of patterns. I can imagine varieties of texture. But what is the tree hearing? Tomatis believed the ear is an evolutionary product of skin cells’ specialization. Humans have sound receptors in their skin. Some animals hear through visible auditory membranes on the surface of their bodies. The skin of these trees is surely paying attention to something!

Laurna – There’s a lot being written these days about trees and forests, approaching (and maybe reaching) concepts like self-consciousness. Even without going anywhere near that far (ha), I can sure be humbled by the complexity of these entities and structures.

I maintain that we should treat ALL living things as being sentient. The fact that plants don’t have the same sensory organs that we do doesn’t disqualify them from having feelings. After all, as someone pointed out recently, our entire skin is an organ of touch. So why couldn’t a tree “feel” — or hear — with its bark and its leaves?
Jim T

Jim – Well, I guess the (admittedly human) neuroscientists get a bit excited about talk of feelings and thoughts in living things unequipped with what they see as the requisite hardware to support these functions. However, if we’re going to err, better on the side of assuming more than less capability.